You’ll never get used to seeing your kid get hurt

Posted in Moment with a Mom
by Alicia Castelli

I was brutally reminded recently that parents will never get used to seeing their kids hurt. It’s the one area of parenting where experience means nothing. You will never be OK with it, you will never be able to take their pain away, you will never stop fearing it, and it will never get easier to deal with.

I have three kids and all of them have been hurt, all of them have been sick and all of them have been to the ER at least once. Thankfully nothing serious has befallen them, but head wounds scare me the most. It’s not just the sickening sound they make, but the fear of what you can’t see happening inside the skull. You watch them for headaches, dizziness, nausea and pupil activity. You don’t sleep that night because you’re constantly checking on them. The worse the bump to the head, the more you worry. It’s always the things a parent can’t see and can’t know that cause the most worry and cost the most sleep.

My 2-year-old daughter recently fell at the pool and landed right on her forehead. The scrape and swelling weren’t so bad. It’s the uncontrollable worry that the injury is more serious. Even though she spent the next five hours playing and eating and showing every indication that she was fine, I barely slept that night for checking on her. I was never so glad that she doesn’t sleep through the night and woke up several times on her own.

Check out my column from June 23 (click on the “Alicia’s columns” link) to get the whole story. Feel free to share your own as well. Misery loves company, after all.